The present invention relates generally to the art of climbing and, more particularly, to an apparatus for climbing trees, utility poles or the like that is simple and more convenient to handle while also providing improved climber safety during use.
For reasons of safety and to avoid potential liability from accidents, utility pole footholds for maintenance personnel typically start some 10 to 12 feet above the ground. This approach is designed to discourage and prevent unauthorized people from climbing up the poles. Of course, utility maintenance personnel need safe and effective climbing aids to reach these footholds in order to make repairs as required; for example, to correct power outages following severe thunderstorms.
Game hunters of, for example, deer often position themselves in tree stands in trees overlying paths followed by the game through the woods. Mature trees in a forested area do not include branches down near the ground so as to allow climbing. As such, hunters have a need for climbing aids that will allow them to get up in a tree along the trunk far enough to reach the lower lying limbs often some 10 to 15 feet above the ground.
Recognizing these needs a number of devices have been developed in the art for climbing utility poles and trees. Examples of such devices are found in Russian Pat. No. 369,914 and Swedish Pat. No. 224,286.
The Russian patent discloses a linesman climbing device including a chain that is extended around the utility pole to be climbed and a complicated conical gear arrangement for automatically controlling the slack in the chain as the weight of the linesman is applied. The Swedish patent discloses a pole climbing device including a band that is extended around the pole. A gear including a series of lugs that extend through apertures in the band is mounted to the housing to tighten and secure the band in position around the poles for climbing.
While these two devices are effective climbing aids, they are not without their disadvantages and could, therefore, be improved. Where an individual is required to climb some 10 to 15 vertical feet before reaching a foothold or tree limb, some 7 or 8 of the climbing aids of the type described above may be required to be used in series along the pole or tree trunk. When not in use, the Russian and Swedish devices are not compact since both include extended lengths of chains and bands, respectively, that are free to become twisted and tangled around each other and other objects during storage and transport to the climbing site. The chains or bands could also become separated and lost from the device leaving the device useless for its intended climbing purpose.